Initium
by zosimos
Summary: A new morning in a new place. Roy/Ed. Heavily AU, urban fantasy, modern setting.


Roy was awakened by Edward's foot jiggling in the bed. He opened his eyes slowly - the room was warm and a little too bright, the cheap draperies that Ed had got at a local thrift shop were clearly not sufficient to block out the headache-inducing sunlight. That already put Roy in a sour mood. He rolled over, sensing Edward's body warmth behind him.

If Roy was cool then Edward was burning hot. It was the middle of November, the average air temperature was just barely registered at comfortable and Edward was sleeping in just his boxers, most of the covers kicked off of the bed. He was up on his side, his tanned, scarred back presented to Roy. He was breathing evenly, still completely asleep, but both of his feet were occasionally twitching.

Roy could not stay mad, he had seen this before. Edward was running in his sleep.

The hunger gnawed away quietly at the inside of his gut. Roy was used to it, now; this creeping invasive pain. He was not even entirely sure why his body needed and craved blood, but it wasn't something he sought to understand. This was just his life now. This was all his life had ever been, his memories of the Time Before were so scattered and weak that they might well have been a joke.

It was always easy to tell how the hunger affected him. He could smell the blood in Edward's veins as he lay beside him, sleeping peacefully. He could almost hear it travelling throughout his body, his heartbeat a living thing there beside him. There was a slowly-healing bruise on Edward's neck that Roy could still see and he felt suddenly shamed by it. He rolled over again and squinted at the ceiling, trying to ignore the way that the warm sunlight caused an ache behind his eyes.

Another unfamiliar ceiling, another new city. This was the third one this year, larger than the other two combined. The bigger the city, the more active the night life, and yet - the harder they would be to find. Roy had been able to locate a job with his unique skill set very quickly. Edward on the other hand, had been hanging out panhandling. Roy was not impressed by this new trick of Edward's, but a large golden "dog" with a sign around his neck and who seemed to do any trick the crowd requested brought in all sorts of random cash.

Roy never liked when Edward used himself like that as a way to generate money, it was a great way to draw attention to themselves and it made it so much easier for them to be found. They would not be here forever, though, and Ed never seemed interested in the more common ways of making money like a regular job. He played poker tourneys and gambled, but he seemed to have some kind of deal with Lady Luck, since he won far more often than he lost.

The angle of the sunlight across the wall and ceiling told Roy that dusk had overtaken the city, and the night would be coming soon. Relief for his poor, beleaguered eyes - unlike most legends sunlight was not lethal, but much like a hangover one did not want to experience too much at once. He probably was not going to be able to get back to sleep, so he might as well get out of bed.

Hunger coiled in his belly like a viper. Roy refused to look at Edward still asleep in their bed, and shuffled toward the kitchen. They did not have much by the way of belongings or furniture, but the apartment had come with some basic things. A bed, a kitchen table, a sofa that Edward had sniffed once and made such a horrified face that they had hauled it to the curb the day they moved in. In their last place they had sprung for a second fridge that Roy kept in the bedroom - but they had not scraped up the cash yet to purchase one here, so a handful of blood bags were shoved into the produce drawers in the refrigerator. Not because Edward cared to hide them, but because Roy did.

The landlord was a scumbag, but fortunately Roy did not have to lean on him particularly hard to rent them the place. It had taken a wad of bills - three months rent, in advance - but that was it. They had no credit histories, no bank accounts to be traced and as such the two of them often lived in the worst parts of town. Edward never batted an eye at it; they had nothing to fear from the humans around them.

There wasn't much in the fridge except for the blood bags and the remains of six-pack of beer and a pizza that Ed had brought home the other night. Roy didn't eat much real food - he could, of course, consume anything he wanted to but he just didn't hunger for food any longer.

Just blood.

He heard Edward make a confused noise from the bedroom as he slid a straw into a blood bag. Cold blood was disgusting, a vile texture and scent but it served its purpose. Roy refused to feed on people, he had been feeding off of rats and other stray animals when Edward had found him passed out in a dumpster. It required nearly twice as much animal blood as human blood to sustain him for some reason, and he was going to dehydrate into a pathetic husk of a vampire if Ed hadn't rescued him.

Roy wasn't sure what happened to vampires when they "dried out." He wasn't particularly interested in finding out.

"Roy?" Edward appeared in the doorway, rubbing one hand sleepily over his face. "S'not dusk yet."

"You were dreaming again," Roy said around his straw. "Kicking me in the leg, repeatedly."

"Mm," Edward furrowed his brow. "Think I was huntin', I remember a deer." He yawned huge, showing off a mouthful of slightly-unnatural looking teeth. It wasn't completely obvious from watching him, but even if Roy had not been able to sense the difference in his blood, an average human would be unsettled by Edward. "Mm, raw venison. We should go hunting."

"There aren't any deer within a hundred miles of here," Roy said dryly. "We're in the middle of a city, Ed."

"I know, I hate it." Edward opened the fridge and frowned, and then picked up a carton of orange juice that was in the door, opening it and sniffing thoughtfully before tipping the carton back. "I want to go back to the woods. We can get a nice cabin in the middle of nowhere. I can run and hunt, and there is plenty of big game for us to eat and no more of this dicking around people thing."

"It's a wonderful idea," Roy said softly. "Until the pack finds us."

He watched the dark scowl settle over Edward's face. The fact that they were hunted was not what bothered him the most, it was the fact that werewolves were persistent and they hated Edward. It had been members of that same pack that ran them out of town this time. These wolves, they had not been interested in just running Edward and Roy out of town … this time they had come prepared with oak stakes and silver-bladed weapons. Edward was slowly running out of places to hide.

"Let them come find us," Edward said boldly. "We can take'em."

"In the middle of the woods, where they can bring as large a force as they'd like to fight just the two of us."

"We can take'em," Edward repeated confidently.

Roy crumpled the empty blood bag and tossed it in the garbage pail. "You wouldn't last five minutes without your porn," he said simply.

Edward opened his mouth to rebut this, thought about it and then closed his mouth. "Shut up," he said instead. Edward padded back toward the bedroom and, after a moment, Roy followed him.

Edward had stopped before the closet, the late afternoon sun glinting off of his long, loose golden hair and warm tanned skin. Roy really disliked the fact that he could no longer stand the sun because Edward was truly a creature of it. Roy draped his arms over Edward's shoulders and leaned slightly forward so he could rest his chin on Edward's shoulder as Ed checked out the bruise on his neck.

He rubbed the bruise with two fingers. One could not really see the two small wounds for the bruise itself, which was fortunate. Edward didn't care if it looked like he had a hickey, but Roy did. He kissed the other side of Edward's neck and Edward tilted his head away to give Roy better access. "Stop fussing," Edward said, as Roy scented the blood under his skin.

"I'm not fussing," Roy murmured. Edward's skin was so warm, so alive. It was frustrating to think that once he had been like that too, if only he could remember it.

"You are," Edward said. He pulled his long, loose hair away from where Roy had unintentionally pinned it and fully exposed the side of his neck. "If you want some, then go ahead. You know I don't mind."

Roy pressed his nose against Edward's neck, deeply inhaling his scent. It was almost torture to ignore the warm blood coursing through Edward's veins, but he had just eaten, and he could not allow himself to give into baser instincts like that. He had to retain self-control.

"I can't become entirely dependent on you for my meals," Roy murmured instead. He slowly dropped his arms from around Edward's broad, muscled shoulders to his hips. "But there are OTHER things, I wouldn't mind having..."

"Oh?" Edward murmured, putting his hands over Roy's on his hips. "Do tell."

A light bite on his neck, a love bite, not intended to break the skin, and Edward rumbled in his throat as he turned in Roy's arms. Roy was taller than him, always had been and always would be, it was just a handful of inches. It was enough, though, that Edward had to tip his head back and Roy his forward for them to kiss.

Edward had never once been afraid of him; perhaps that was why Roy was so drawn to him. Edward did not draw back at the lethal sharpness of Roy's teeth; he was not hesitant at the fact that Roy's skin was cooler, and paler and that Roy could easily pick Edward up and throw him like a rag doll. Edward seemed to not have that built-in sense of fear where anything was concerned, Roy had rarely ever seen Edward genuinely afraid of anything.

And then Roy remembered the pain and that fear in Edward's voice and eyes; blood pouring from his side where the werewolf's weapon has cut him open. He had been afraid not for his own life but for Roy's, knowing that it had been days since Roy had a full meal and that he was so weak. Ed was afraid of losing him, and that was the greatest honor he could imagine.

He had begun to suspect that werewolves mated for life; but when he had broached the subject to Edward, Ed had rolled his eyes and huffed something about Roy being a ridiculous old man.

Roy slipped his hands down into Edward's boxers, sliding the waistband down over sharply-defined hips. Edward wrapped his arms around Roy's hips and ground against him helpfully, gold eyes on Roy's nearly-black ones.

Then the knock came at the door, loud and unexpected. Edward snarled, a face full of teeth and Roy had to kiss him again just to keep him from starting the change out of sheer aggravation. The knock came again and with a grumble Ed pulled his boxers back up and stalked toward the front of the apartment.

Roy buttoned his shirt as he heard Edward talking in low tones; but there was no anger or warning in Edward's voice. If he concentrated he could easily make out the conversation itself but Edward was an intensely private person and Roy would not do that to him.

"Hey Mustang," Edward called from the living room. "It's a job, get out here so I can put on some pants."

He smiled to himself as he made out the barely-disguised aggravation in Edward's voice. There would be plenty of time for antics later. Roy ran his fingers through his hair once before stepping out into the living room to see what fortune had landed on their doorstep today.


End file.
